help with backstroke

On 15 Feb 2004 17:38:28 -0800, [email hidden]

(andres muro) said:

when I swim backstroke, do I look towards my feet or up?

The good guys look up and maybe just a little backwards, but not at their feet. If I look backwards
at all, I have to kick like mad to keep my legs from sinking. I never used to do back because after
two lengths of desperate kicking, I'd cramp up.

So I look straight up and even a bit forward from time to time. I do three small beats of kicking
when I'm first sweeping down on each side. You do have to get used to your face being mostly covered
with water, though.

Quoted message said:

Do I pull while other arm recovers, or do I pull while other arm stays behind glyding?

I enter one arm as soon as the other is done pulling. In long distance back, my one hand actually
rests by my hip after the stroke until I've made the catch with the other. Also, I found that I was
pulling too deep. Try pulling your arms as if you were pulling on the bottom of the lane line.

Donal Fagan AIA Donal@DonalO'Fagan.com (Anglicise the name to reply by e-mail)

The backstroke is easier to do if you sync your arms. You probably want to look to the deck behind
you (most likely because that's where your coach is giving you info). You are pulling, no doubt
about it, but whatever works for you is what you should do. Your knees *will* bend, it hurts too
much to keep them locked. As for splashing, that's the nature of the beast.

andres muro left this mess on 15 Feb 2004 17:38:28 -0800 for The Way to clean up:

Quoted message said:

when I swim backstroke, do I look towards my feet or up? Do I pull while other arm recovers, or do
I pull while other arm stays behind glyding? If I try to do the latter I lose balance. It seems
that I have to recover with one, while pullig with other. I seem to want to drop my butt down, and
I feel that i bend my knees too much. Also, I always seem to splasy water into all my orifices. Any
suggestions?

Andres

Tao te Carl "It takes a village to have an idiot." - Carl (c) 2003

(Kudos to Cap'n Jim Wyatt for this link) BEFORE you ask a dumb-ass question
here...http://www.speakeasy.org/~neilco/bart.gif

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Do I pull while other arm recovers, or do I pull while other arm stays behind glyding?

I enter one arm as soon as the other is done pulling. In long distance back, my one hand actually
rests by my hip after the stroke until I've made the catch with the other. Also, I found that I
was pulling too deep. Try pulling your arms as if you were pulling on the bottom of the lane line.

Donal Fagan AIA

This makes it sound as if you are keeping your arms straight. Are you?

Pat in TX

Pat said:

Quoted message said:

I enter one arm as soon as the other is done pulling. In long distance back, my one hand
actually rests by my hip after the stroke until I've made the catch with the other. Also, I
found that I was pulling too deep. Try pulling your arms as if you were pulling on the bottom of
the lane line.

Quoted message said:

This makes it sound as if you are keeping your arms straight. Are you?

Only during recovery. I've thrown a lot of things at backstroke in the last couple of years. First
my CT masters coach had us do a drill where we recovered our arms straight up, held there and
pronated, then entered the water fully pronated. She didn't really cover the catch, pull, etc.

Carl (de Valois) posted with advice to pull as if picking an apple and putting it in your back
pocket, which helped a bit and got me pulling shallower.

Maglischo had drawings of three sweeps, a deep downsweep and then two shallower sweeps. This got me
back in the deep catch habit, but I didn't think it was helping.

I already had a TI crawl video, but I broke down and got the TI Long Axis video, which had me
rolling from sweet spot to sweet spot. As with Crawl, the TI stuff really helped my horizontal
balance. TI turned my Backstroke into a fairly comfortable stroke instead of an escape from looming
disaster. But I still thought I was pulling too deep, much deeper than the elites in all those
video clips.

I went to GoSwim, run by former Olympian and TI coach Glenn Mills and some other guys. They had the
advice about pulling along the lane rope. But I don't keep my arm straight. It is more like Carl's
'picking the apple' idea, after all.

Donal Fagan AIA Donal@DonalO'Fagan.com (Anglicise the name to reply by e-mail)

Not to tout this as advice to the original poster by any means, simply an interesting aside.

I've moved towards coaching back with only slight flexion at the elbow, and no finishing-down sweep
(S shape pull), rather a straight continuous sweep from a deep catch, stright back and out, the
upsweep coinciding with the hip moving up on that same side (more like a nike symbol shaped
pull)...employs more of the core, as opposed to the hip moving up while the hand is finishing
downwards..

"Mike Edey" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Shallow hand, (bent) deep elbow? That makes sense.

--Mike

Donal Fagan said:

Pat said:

> I enter one arm as soon as the other is done pulling. In long distance back, my one hand
> actually rests by my hip after the stroke until I've made the catch with the other. Also, I
> found that I was pulling too deep. Try pulling your arms as if you were pulling on the bottom
> of the lane line.

Quoted message said:

This makes it sound as if you are keeping your arms straight. Are you?

Only during recovery. I've thrown a lot of things at backstroke in the last couple of years.
First my CT masters coach had us do a drill where we recovered our arms straight up, held
there and pronated, then entered the water fully pronated. She didn't really cover the catch,
pull, etc.

Carl (de Valois) posted with advice to pull as if picking an apple and putting it in your back
pocket, which helped a bit and got me pulling shallower.

Maglischo had drawings of three sweeps, a deep downsweep and then two shallower sweeps. This got
me back in the deep catch habit, but I didn't think it was helping.

I already had a TI crawl video, but I broke down and got the TI Long Axis video, which had me
rolling from sweet spot to sweet spot. As with Crawl, the TI stuff really helped my horizontal
balance. TI turned my Backstroke into a fairly comfortable stroke instead of an escape from
looming disaster. But I still thought I was pulling too deep, much deeper than the elites in all
those video clips.

I went to GoSwim, run by former Olympian and TI coach Glenn Mills and some other guys. They had
the advice about pulling along the lane rope. But I don't keep my arm straight. It is more like
Carl's 'picking the apple' idea, after all.

Donal Fagan AIA Donal@DonalO'Fagan.com (Anglicise the name to reply by e-mail)